


Grief of an Ice Queen

by diogenku



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mitsuru cares a hell of a lot more than she lets on, POV Second Person, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 09:15:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6368857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diogenku/pseuds/diogenku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Mitsuru Kirijo. You do not mourn. You cannot afford to. </p>
<p>You are Atlas and this whole world is trying to break your back. [Edited]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief of an Ice Queen

**Author's Note:**

> So. Spoilers for like, the whole game. This was sort of an exercise in catharsis for us, one person in particular. If you notice any incongruities in time...don't even worry about it. The fic is from Mitsuru's point of view (in that Mitsuru is 'you'). A bit unpolished, but this is more about raw emotion than storytelling.
> 
> Edit 5/22/17: Replaced with the second draft.

You are young and you cannot make this make sense.

_Shinjiro Aragaki is dead._ Everyone around you is crying; you grit your teeth and hold it in the center of your stomach, like you always do. You think they must expect you to be strong, and you are, to the rest of the world.

You report his death because there is no one else who will. You deliver his body to the hospital, because the only family he has is you and Akihiko, and you notify the school, all while everyone else goes home to mourn. Akihiko is silent the entire time. You make the funeral service arrangements, and it all passes in a blur.

Finally it’s over, and you get back to the dorm.

You walk into your room, close and lock the door behind you, and that’s when you start to cry.

You’ve never been a pretdty crier. All the anguish you’ve felt in the past few hours leaves you in a grimacing-weeping mess of tears. You lay in bed for hours, crying like this. You think you may have broken the glass you left on the bedside table. Its contents are all over the wall opposite to you and the glass has lodged in the carpet fiber.

* * *

And then, your own father dies on a rooftop at midnight, shot by a man you thought you could trust.

It was too soon. Too soon. You hadn’t gotten to apologize for all your mistakes. You hadn’t gotten to scream at him like you wanted to when you were small. You’d never gotten the chance.

You didn’t get to tell him you forgave him.

He is the only family you have left, and so once again you will have to make the funeral arrangements, have to make up an excuse for the evening news who will announce it in passing. You don’t turn on the television. You don’t want to hear that he left behind just one daughter. Instead, you curl up into yourself, not speaking to anyone, no matter how much they knock at your door.

This time, the tears are silent except for the muffled cries of pain, like you’re a child again.

* * *

You mentally add him to your list of responsibilities.

He wasn’t just another member of SEES, and everyone knew it. They called him their leader but, like the other second-years, you had felt as though you were the one who needed to guide them. You were never close with them the same way you were with your fellow seniors, and maybe, you think, they didn’t know you even cared. As cold as you may have seemed at times you were still watching them, taking note of their well-being, every time you fought a shadow you anxiously took a count of who was still standing.

And on that roof, he isn’t.

Aigis cries over his quickly-fading body. You take him to the hospital, wishing, hoping that he will somehow make it, and Aigis holds onto your hand like a lifeline. You don’t cry when they announce him dead on arrival. You don’t cry when you call his family. You almost cry when you hear his grandfather’s voice over the phone tremble dangerously, and you can almost feel tears creep into your eyes when he breaks down.

You don’t cry for three days. You don’t cry at the funeral, knowing Aigis should be there, but isn’t.

Finally, you feel it coming. You flee to your room. You can’t stop yourself from losing the strength to stand, losing the strength to keep your face calm, and you wail into the carpet. If anyone hears, they pretend they don’t.

It washes over you all at once. This was your fault. He was your responsibility. You could have saved him! You could have saved them all, if you had just tried harder. But you hadn’t and now…

He’s gone, and there is nothing you can do to change it. In a world where it seems like the impossible comes to pass, you can’t change this small, mundane thing. For all the miracles you have seen you cannot bring him or anyone else back from the dead.

You lay there, curled in on yourself, forehead against the floor, and you allow yourself to mourn.


End file.
